Leah and the Popular Sensations
'' Leah and the Popular Sensations ''is the fifth book in the Middle School Experience series. It chronicles Leah's desire to find new friends when she feels like her old ones are too immature for her. Little does she know that the Popular Sensations are not all that cracked up to be. Leah Harrison starts to grow tired of her friends’ immature habits. She decides to start hanging out with the Popular Sensations, girls who are mean-spirited but enjoy the same things that she does. But when her old friends begin to resent her new friendships and her new friends turn out to be less favorable than expected, will she end up having to choose between the popular girls and her real friends? Summary The story begins with Leah and her friends at lunch. The girls are talking about various things, such as the school musical and forgotten cartoon shows. Arabella is freaking out about not being able to have time to rehearse due to her time in the student council, and her overdramatic attitude annoys Leah. Leah pulls out a fashion magazine and asks her friends to read the magazine with her. Gail is the only one that is interested in the magazine, but no one else is interested. Leah begins to find many of her friends' attitudes and behaviors childish. Her feelings are cemented when she goes on a shopping trip with Arabella and Chloe during the weekend, where Chloe is a nitpicky shopper and Arabella has embarrassing outbursts. At school the following Monday, Leah is walking down the hallway with Chloe, Alex, and Ellie, who are having a conversation about the game Marco Polo. The subject changes when Alex asks the girls if they want to watch "Scooby Doo" with her, and Leah is annoyed and embarrassed by the conversation. The girls run into the Popular Sensations, and Clarissa taunts Alex. When the bell for homeroom rings, Clarissa, Lindsay, and Mary-Kate approach Leah. Clarissa confesses that she has always believed that Leah was cool and wants to be her friend. She invites Leah to eat lunch with her, but Leah declines since she is not a fan of the Popular Sensations' behavior. During lunch, Leah tells her friends about her conversation with Clarissa. Some of them believe that Clarissa just wants to use her, but Gail suggests that Leah sit with them so she can figure out what Clarissa wants. Leah surprises Marylin and Gabby when she approaches the Popular Sensations' table, but Clarissa reassures her friends that Leah can sit with them. The Popular Sensations begin talking about buying outfits for Gabby and Clarissa's joint birthday party, but the conversation morphs into them bad-mouthing other students. Leah accidentally blurts out something bad about Alex and begins to feel guilty. However, as lunch goes on, she joins the Popular Sensations in gossiping about the other students in their grade. At the end of lunch, Gabby and Clarissa invite Leah to their party. Later, Arabella and Chloe ask Leah about how lunch was, and Leah tells them that sitting with the Popular Sensations is not that terrible. However, she realizes that the experience was a one-time thing, and she is still stuck with her immature friends. Leah does not sit with the Popular Sensations for the next few days, but she becomes friendly with them through text messaging and social media. She gets to talk about fashion non-stop and is able to rekindle her friendship with her childhood friend Marylin, who is now a Popular Sensation. However, Leah's new friendships do not sit well with her old friends. When Gail expresses concern, Leah brushes her off. On Thursday morning, Jessie and Alex accuse Leah of acting shallow about subjects other than fashion, but all this does is annoy Leah. The conversation is interrupted when Arabella runs to the girls in tears; she is forced to work in a student council fundraiser, which cuts into rehearsal time for the school musical. When Leah suggest that Arabella quit the musical, Arabella has a meltdown, earning her the ridicule of nearby students. Leah shares an annoyed look with Clarissa, who is standing nearby. Arabella asks Leah to come to the bathroom with her so she can fix her makeup, but Leah declines, much to the disapproval of Alex and Jessie. Leah quickly grows tired of her friends' immaturity. When lunch begins, Leah is about to sit with her friends when Clarissa and Gabby ask Leah to sit with them. Leah decides to sit with the Popular Sensations, shocking her friends. The Popular Sensations talk about the upcoming party until Clarissa changes the subject to bring up Arabella's meltdown. Gabby uses Clarissa's taunts as an excuse to complain about how the student council elections were rigged and state that Arabella does not deserve to be the class president. Mary-Kate complains about not understanding her Spanish homework, and Clarissa makes a racist comment about Jessie's Mexican heritage. After spewing out offensive comments about their classmates, the girls decide to read fashion magazines. As Leah reads, she begins to feel bad about the way she treated Gail and decides to ask the Popular Sensations if she can invite Gail to sit with them. To her surprise, the girls react negatively to that, and Marylin even calls Gail a slut. Clarissa explains to Leah that her ex-boyfriend Blake cheated on her with Gail, who was trying to lure him away. Leah knows this isn't true, but doesn't say anything. After lunch, Leah notices that her friends are upset with her for ditching them for the Popular Sensations. After school that day, Lindsay and Mary-Kate ask Leah to come to the Westmimic Mall with them on Saturday so they can buy outfits for Clarissa and Gabby's birthday party. Leah runs into her friends when she goes to the bus canopy, and they greet her coolly. When Jessie and Alex express their anger about Leah sitting with the Popular Sensations during lunch, Leah snaps and repeats the racist remark that Clarissa had said about Jessie. For the rest of the week, Leah's attitude and willingness to sit with the Popular Sensations earns her hostility from her friends. However, Leah is starting to sour on the Popular Sensations; their conversations are dull and repetitive and Leah doesn't approve of their nasty gossip. On Friday evening, Leah asks her parents if she can go shopping with Lindsay and Mary-Kate and go to Gabby and Clarissa's party. Though her parents have reservations about her hanging out with the Popular Sensations, they allow her to go to the mall and the party. On Saturday morning, Leah receives a call from Chloe, who is concerned that Leah is mad at her. Leah reassures Chloe that she isn't mad, and Chloe tells her that she is going to the Lenox Mall with Gail to find a costume for the school musical. Leah wonders why Arabella (who is also in the musical) is not going on this shopping trip, and Chloe informs her that Arabella had quit the play. Leah begins to feel guilty for not being sympathetic towards Arabella's problems. She also lies to Chloe and tells her that she can't go to the mall. At the Westmimic Mall, Leah quickly learns that Lindsay and Mary-Kate are terrible shoppers and begins to regret blowing off Chloe and Gail. After spending a long time in one store, the girls decide to go to the food court, and Leah decides to save a table for Lindsay and Mary-Kate while they go to the bathroom. Unfortunately, she runs into Gail and Chloe, who spot her, and they figure out that she had lied to them about her weekend plans. When Leah arrives home, her parents inform her that a dinner party they were supposed to attend that night was moved up an hour, and they need a babysitter for Stephanie and Cindy, Leah's younger sisters, because the original babysitter was unable to come. Upset, Leah calls Gail to ask her for help, but Gail berates her for her behavior towards their friends. Desperate, Leah decides to go to the party and leave her sisters home alone. She tells Stephanie and Cindy that they have to stay home alone so she can go to the Popular Sensations' party, much to their fear. Leah walks to Gabby's house, where the party is taking place. When she arrives, she realizes that there are a lot of high schoolers that had been invited and no parental supervision. Leah is immediately ridiculed for her outfit choice, which is less sexy and revealing than the dresses of other female attendees. Leah catches up with the Popular Sensations, but she is immediately berated by Lindsay for not wearing a "sexy" dress. To her surprise, Marylin sticks up for her, but her opinion does nothing to change her friends' minds. Leah becomes hungry and asks Gabby where she can find food, but Gabby tells her that she and the other Popular Sensations cannot eat in front of the boys because it is "gross and degrading". Clarissa finally arrives to the party with her new boyfriend, Michael, and two of his friends; the boys make fun of Leah for wearing a "babyish" dress. One of the boys convinces the DJ to turn the music up, and the party officially begins. Ryan, one of the boys who made fun of Leah, asks her to dance, but she declines and decides to go to the bathroom. As she looks for a bathroom, she overhears a group of high school girls bashing the Popular Sensations and saying that they are trying too hard to look and act older. Leah opens a door that she thinks is a bathroom, but instead leads to a closet, where Michael is making out with a girl who is not Clarissa. After Leah finally finds a bathroom, she meets up with the Popular Sensations and tries to tell them about Michael's infidelities. However, the girls are preoccupied by Mark and Ryan, two older boys who are pressuring them to drink beer. Lindsay and Mary-Kate make up excuses so they don't have to drink it, but Marylin gives into the pressure and chugs down a significant portion of the bottle. This makes her very tipsy, and the boys sneer at her before asking Leah to try the beer. Leah refuses and decides to leave the party. Just as she is about to leave, Michael catches up with her and pleads with her not to tell Clarissa about his cheating. When Leah says no, Michael tries to seduce her into giving into his demands. They are caught by Clarissa, and Michael runs off. Leah tries to explain to Clarissa what Michael did, but to her surprise, Clarissa blames her for the incident and accuses Leah of trying to get with Michael behind her back. She calls Leah babyish for not acting like the rest of the girls for the party and calls Leah a slut, prompting Leah to leave. Leah begins to walk home, but she is stopped by a policeman. He identifies her and tells her that one of her sisters had gotten sick, so the other sister went to a neighbor's house to ask for help; that neighbor then called Leah's parents, who are worried when they realize that Leah is not at home. Leah looks at her phone and sees that she has plenty of missed phone calls, voicemails, and text messages from her parents and friends. Leah then realizes that her friends, despite their flaws, truly care about her. When Leah arrives home, her family is ecstatic to see her, but when the police leave, they immediately scold her for her irresponsible behavior. Leah learns that Cindy is the sister who had gotten sick, and that Alex and her mother were the neighbors that Stephanie had called for help. Leah's parents ground her for an indefinite amount of time and take away her cell phone privileges and her privilege to babysit her sisters. Despite being punished, Leah makes an effort to make things right with her family again. At the bus stop on Monday morning, Leah apologizes to Ellie and Alex, and they forgive her. Before homeroom, Leah apologizes to Jessie, Chloe, and Arabella; she also reassures Arabella that dropping out of the school musical is not the end of the world. When Leah walks to homeroom, she runs into Gail, and despite some awkwardness, apologizes for how she had acted towards her. The Popular Sensations walk past them and Clarissa taunts Leah and Gail, but Leah sticks up for herself and her friend and tells Clarissa to back off. Gail confesses to Leah that she felt like their friends could be immature at times, but she tolerates it because she knows that she can't change who they are, no matter what. Leah realizes that Gail is right and promises to herself that she will be more accepting of her friends' differences. Characters (in order of appearance) * Leah Harrison * Arabella Wilson * Ellie Jackson * Chloe Winters * Gail Edwards * Jessie Sanchez * Alex Sanders * Clarissa Simpson * Lindsay Shapiro * Marylin Roberts * Gabby Evans * Mary-Kate Lucas * Kelly Harrison * Brandon Harrison * Stephanie Harrison * Cindy Harrison * Michael Trivia *This book was rewritten four times. First edition, 2008. Fourth edition, July 2016. *In some of the older editions, there is a scene where Leah, Lindsay, and Mary-Kate get caught for shoplifting at the mall, but the creator took it out because it didn't add anything to the story. Category:Stories